What's the way to Neverland?

Chasing a dream. Summer 2020

I was with my sister. We were swimming in a river, somewhere in... Sweden, I guess? Blue twilight. Dark water. We were a group of people. Someone was leading the group. He seemed familiar... how was it possible? I had been listening to his music since I was a teenager. I had never met him but I was sure it was him. How amazing was that!? I told my sister that I wanted to catch up with him. I swam through the dark water, eager to talk with him...

Then I woke up.

... what?

I was lying on my bed in my little room in Strasbourg. Blue light fell through the blind before the window. Soon it would be another hot summer day. What strange feeling was this? Restlessness? Yearning? Such a beautiful scenery. The water. My sister. Sweden. And I still wanted to talk with him. Find out what person is behind this music. What was inspiring him. Where he was heading to...

I stayed in bed for hours this day, getting lost somewhere between sadness and daydreaming. If only I could go back into the dream...

***

I sat down on the big beton cube that was rising over the water like a throne. It had been left here at the lakefront, not far from the village where I was working, for reasons unknown. Dragonflies were buzzing over the surface of the water and landed next to me. Some Magic was happening. Dreams were taking the shape of ideas, of characters, of dialogues. Since I had started my holidays I came here every day, listening, taking notes. In the evening I rode my bike to the train that brought me home, my wet hair cooling me down in the warm air until it dried in the wind. Each day that passed I got a bit more excited and afraid. I felt that I needed to get going or I could stay stuck here forever, listening to the echo of my dreams in the loneliness. Just like I had been doing for most of my life. If I ever wanted to channel this river from my dream into my life and go swimming with someone, I needed to make the jump.

...

After midnight. I watched the bus driver close the luggage compartment where I, with a knot in my stomach, had placed the bag with the newest handpan I had made. Then we got rolling. The night lights of Strasbourg, which was my home now since 1,5 years, stayed back behind. We crossed the river, the border to Germany. I was painfully nervous. It would be a long ride. It felt weird to jump on a bus in the middle of the night, without a real plan. But it was also liberating.

The first time I heard the song, I thought it was strange. Then I listened again and thought it was interesting. The third time, I was completely hooked. It was ingenious. Starting with a simple, powerful motif, a soft rhythm. Elaborating it in beautiful voices. Painting a scene of city night melancholy. Then taking it out of the scale. Leading me somewhere where I can't yet follow... then picking me up and guiding me back on track. Lifting me up on the ride through the song, with all your beautiful energy, into a mood of innocence and yearning, energy and mystery...

------- Berlin --------

I spent one week in Berlin. On some days I simply hung out with the handpan people, found something nice in the supermarket and made food. On some days I chose a place on the map and went out for exploration, just by myself, with the handpan on my back. Then I listened to the melody of the closing doors in the metro and the Berlin dialect in its distant familiarity. Depending on my mood I would either pick a random park and then walk through the streets for hours, tasting the ambience and imagine life of the people living here. Or I would take a tour into the surroundings and watch the boats on one of the lakes, or get lost in the large, sandy forest in the Southwest. One or two times I challenged myself to actually eat out. Many things are easier once you're out of your comfort zone.

A playful motif. Shimmering. Moving. Curiosity. Playing with rhythm. A moment of nostalgia. Playing with voice. And moving again. Excitement. Anticipation...

I was floating along with the music echoing in my mind, between hope and excitement, fear and melancholy. I was hoping to meet him, but things stayed undecided and I tried to settle with the idea that might not work out this time. My imagination painted possible scenes from this unknown person's life into the city. Walking down these streets. Sitting in this park. Feeling happy. Feeling sad. Making choices. Finding out how he wanted to live, and to evolve the music inside of him. Why would you choose to live here if you could live in the most beautiful part of Europe? Why?

[Berlin]

***

I did not manage to eat. Time was passing too slowly and too fast. When I was with the others, I wanted to be alone. When I was alone, nervousness was tearing me apart. Finally I found a place on the terrace in a manageable distance and involved myself with handicraft. One more hour to pass...

Of course he will be different than anything you imagine.

I don't imagine anything.

An imaginary voice laughed.

Time to go.

I placed my handpan in the backpack and told the others that I was out for a while.

"Not on an appointment to sell the instrument, hopefully?", they joked.

I laughed.

Slowly, I went to the station. I was lucky with the weather.

It's actually happening...

Three more stations...

What was is that I wanted to remember...?

Two...

Could I please have some silence up there in my head, please?

One...

Thank you.

Here we are.

I was well in time so I sat on a wall and watched the people who came walking. Couples... bikers... a guy with a headphone and a security t-shirt who wasn't him. I didn't know anything. Not his age. Not, how he looked like. He could be an office guy. A family dad. An old man.

The minutes passed. Then someone talked to me from behind. "I've seen you with the instrument."

We sat down in the park, between three little trees. He had a lemonade drink and plastic cups with him. He spoke a few words of German with me, then we switched back to English. We talked about Germany and Norway, about language learning, social anxiety and meditating.

"Berlin always felt like this Peter Pan city to me, for people who refuse to grow up."

I showed him the handpan. He took it on his lap and played a bit. I asked him about his life and he told me about growing up in Norway, about his beginnings of making music and how it had become his profession. About his connection to Berlin, his current doings and struggles.

Turned out that he wasn't much into swimming. I told him about my plans to continue my travel to Stockholm to see my sister. And that I dearly wished to see Norway as well.

"Learning Norwegian should be easy for you since you speak German and English already", he said. "Norwegian is a simple language for simple people."

He checked his phone. He was a bit tired and indecisive, but finally decided to go home and to meet someone else later.

I spent a few more days in Berlin because I got my period and was not a state to travel. As much as I wished to spend more time with him, I was grateful for the time he had dedicated to me, for this beautiful memory I had with his music now, and did not want to push for more. He had other things to do in his life, other people to make happy. But in my mind I kept experiencing this one hour we had shared in the park again and all the things we had talked about, like that movie that you just wish to never end. Doubts and fear reached for my heart with long fingers, telling me that he was way less excited about me than I was about him. And that we might never meet again.

Finally I planned the next step and left Berlin, my heart aching as the city stayed back behind me, and a part of me stayed with it (... lost my belly piercing (: ). It got better with a few 100 km of distance. I knew that what I needed to do was to channel a powerful energy which was hurting when it was roaming freely inside of me.

***

Norwegian language has an interesting rhythm, coming from the difference in speed and stress of the syllables, and, depending on the regional dialect, the melody of a sentence. The language is well known for the variety in dialects, as well as the habit of breathing in while confirming. One other thing which is interesting is how they mess with articles and, sometimes, put them at the end of the word.

friend venn

a friend en venn

the friend vennen

my friend vennen min

friends venner

the friends vennene

my friends vennene mine

Nouns have two genders - neutrum (word with -et article / ending, 20% of words) and utrum (word with -en article / ending, 80% of words = safe guess). Utrum means that the gender is used for both male and female cases (which, like in English, makes life easier for feminists and queer people, I guess, than in Germany :] ).

en man a man

en kvinne a woman

en sykepleier a nurse (m/f)

Sometimes the -en is replaced by -a for some words in spoken language. Both versions are correct but may have a different feeling for Norwegians. Otherwise, nouns don't get modified and verb conjugation makes no difference between me, you, they etc. Nouns get connected to chains like in German (matpakkeposer - food packing bags). Many words are close to German or English and m̶e̶a̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶

sky "schy" cloud

What is really special (and confusing) is that the vowels are shifted in frequency. Except when they are not (:

a a shifted towards o

å round o

(ååååh! <-- that's an impressed Norwegian)

o o shifted towards u

(fjord "fjur" , Oslo "Uschlo")

u "ü"

y i shifted towards ü

I came to the conclusion that it's best to listen to every word in the online dictionary at the beginning, because things seem to be not coherent. As in general, it may be more helpful to listen a lot, to get an intuition about how things are working than to try to memorize a system which does not exist.

Norwegian phrases often felt to me like an ingenious simplification or a child's way of expressing things, which made me laugh (not to be confused with arrogance, I love your language, dear Norwegians, and I don't think that you're more or less simple than other people :] ). Learning to make Norwegian sentences means, first if all, learning to give up the advanced constructions you're used to when expressing yourself. But to make simple sentences instead.

***

When I got off at Hamburg and saw the bus to Stockholm arriving, I got lifted up by a wave of excitement again. It had been a good choice to not get stuck in Berlin. It was hard to believe that I was actually going to Sweden with my handpan (and a few capricious fairies), but it was happening. Why did I need to turn 30 before making it happen...? I guess because I used to fight so much with my basic living that I never considered a travel as an investment in my own life.

We were driving for a few hours. In the evening, the sea started to show up in the landscape. The bus stopped at a border control. Then we rolled onto a ferry, crossing a small arm of the sea between Germany and Denmark. It's a rare occasion to someone spending their life in central Europe to see the sea, to hear the gulls and to feel the wind in your face. It always amazes me.

We continued our ride in the bus and eventually I doze off in the seat. It was a long ride through the night. When the morning lit the surroundings I could see that we were driving through wide forests and passing by lakes, covered by a veil of mist. I was floating with happiness, realizing that I was actually in Sweden, 1600 km away from my life in Strasbourg. There was so much to explore! It was a feeling of freedom which I never had felt before.

-------- Stockholm --------

I had a little room in an old house in a village between Stockholm and Uppsala, living with a very kind and respectful older Swedish lady who spoke just enough English to get along. Here in the silence, far away from my daily struggles, I would wake up at 7:30 am, feeling rested and excited about the new day. I picked up some bread and jam from the store, then I walked through the forest to the lake and found a place to have breakfast on these nice, round rocks which are everywhere around Stockholm. I couldn't get a word down for my story, but I would work on the drawing for hours, learn about meditation and write down Norwegian words.

I met my sister (she was working at Uppsala "Upp soa la" this year) and we sat by the lake and talked for a long time. We visited Uppsala, played a few sessions of Magic the Gathering and went on a small hike with her friends. It was too early to leave, but my room was taken so I moved to another room at Stockholm. Here i finally got back into writing.

[Stockholm + Knivsta]

Stockholm is a great place to explore with a lot of water all around, beautiful parks, forests, hills and islands at the coast. Mid-august was the beginning of autumn. The weather was cool and rainy. When I went out with the handpan and found a spot to sit down and play, sometimes people would suddenly appear, curious about the instrument. One of them was a woman who was into music producing, meditation and fantasy stuff. We found a lot to talk about and I was really happy about the contact. She told me about an electronic music festival she had visited on an island in Norway and pointed me to the music of Nodens Ictus and Carbone Based Lifeforms, which became my favourite music in a long while. Stockholm could be a nice place to live, I thought. Maybe what I needed was a second anchor... to switch between Strasbourg and Stockholm from time to time. However this could look like.

At the beginning of september I felt it was time to return to Strasbourg and the life which I had chosen. I took the ferry for a long ride from Malmö to Germany. On the ferry I could pass the time moving around, listening to music and writing while watching the sea and the setting sun through the window. I was looking forward to enjoy my own bed, bathroom and kitchen... and then to start to transform steel into music again.

[What's the way to Neverland? Drawing made on the travel]

***

The Golden Nord

A dream I had as a child. The Golden Nord (nord meaning: north in German) was a form resembling the letter N. It was quite big and seemed to have it's own character, at least it had the troubling habit to fly away and get lost somewhere. So in my dream I needed to get out to look for it, passing - partly by foot, partly flying myself - an autumn forest and a river, before finding it at last on the top of a tower and taking it back home.

It's funny to remember this now. Maybe the Nord has been a part of myself for all my life. Flying away, getting lost somewhere and waiting there for me to collect it - while I, most of the time, backed off from searching for it because it would need money and effort to get there, which I thought I should / could not invest at this moment.